Adverse Possession: Emininent domain's evil twin brother?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by snoopy369
If you've driven or walked across a dirt road for twenty five years to access your yard without objection, and suddenly someone puts a fence preventing you from accessing your yard, wouldn't you be annoyed?

You still didn't answer the question. Why should anyone need a reason to fence thier property?

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Arrian
Sounds like the Kirlins wanted to build a new house, and were going to put up a fence.

The other people didn't like it - the new house would block their view or something, and stole the land (legally, of course). Oh, and the fact that the guy is a former judge had nothing to do with the ruling, I'm sure.

-Arrian

This may well be exactly what happened in this instance... but Uberloz, an easement is an entirely reasonable resolution to the theoretical problem here. It is not as black and white as you have been portraying it.

DinoDoc: A reason is irrelevant and I should not have said "for no reason". Even a very good reason would not be enough to permit it to be built and block the access in this case.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Whoha
They filed a lawsuit to prevent the productive use of a vacant lot. How can that possibly be construed/contrived as being supportive of productive use is beyond me.

If that's all they used it for then the decision is wrong. Taking 5 minutes twice a year to drive over it isn't productive use.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
You still didn't answer the question. Why should anyone need a reason to fence thier property?

Why shouldnt someone who doesnt want to pay a lien on THEIR property, have the right to refuse to do so?

You see if X has an easement on property owned by Y, then Y doesnt own the property absolutely - they own it subject to the easement. Y has a property right in the easement.

As for the good sport thing, IIUC its quite possible to let someone cross your property WITHOUT creating an easement - you just tell them, hey, im letting you cross, but this in no way creates an easement. You can put up a sign to that effect, I think, whatever.

[Arrian]

This was a land-grab, pure and simple, and quite contrary to the spirit of the law.

Hopefully it's taken care of on appeal.

-Arrian

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Oerdin


If that's all they used it for then the decision is wrong. Taking 5 minutes twice a year to drive over it isn't productive use.

crossing a property for transportation is about the most common form of easement created by use, IIUC. Im not sure how many times a year it has to be, presumably thats based on case law, the state statute, etc.

[Zkribbler]

By the way, have you ever noticed those signs on sidewalks in cities:

Private Property. The right to cross over this land is revocable at any time.

This is the owners's way of saying that they're granting you their permission to cross over their land. This makes the use of the land by other permissive. Adverse possessors must show their use of the land was "hostile" to the owner's ownership interest. Thus, no adverse possession can occur.

[uberloz]

Originally posted by snoopy369 ... but Uberloz, an easement is an entirely reasonable resolution to the theoretical problem here. It is not as black and white as you have been portraying it.

I totally get that.

I think I was editing the post you are referring to here as you were typing yours.

I could see the use of an easement to satisfy all parties here if the original owners were in favor of it. I just don't see the use of adverse possesion as being applicable.

I also don't like the whole idea of adverse possesion to begin with.

But then I've never been in favor of forced redistribution in any form.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Why shouldnt someone who doesnt want to pay a lien on THEIR property, have the right to refuse to do so?

It's thier property. The neighbors had no right to the use of property that wasn't thiers. What right did the land grabbers have to abuse the fact the owners were such good sports? If the land grabbers needed access to thier back yard, they should have taken care of that when they bought the property.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
By the way, have you ever noticed those signs on sidewalks in cities:

Are there such signs in your cities?

[Imran Siddiqui]

little-known law of adverse possession

Little known?! Every Property class (which is almost always a required course) in every law school discusses adverse possession.

[Berzerker]

Wow, according to this BS we could lose our land to our neighbors because we've been letting them keep a couple horses on our property.

The court is giving trespassers the land they've been trespassing on

I wonder if we can go use federal land without being noticed for a few years and then claim ownership.

[Dinner]

It's called squater's rights.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Arrian
Their neighbors wanted to build a fence (gasp! how horrible). In response they got a restraining order, and then filed suit claiming that, because they had used part of the other people's land "to access their backyard and had never been asked to stop" - thus they should own it. Not at all in the spirit of the law. Bad decision by the judge, which will hopefully be overturned on appeal.

Uh... no. This is an archetypal adverse possession case. Not sure why the judge didn't create an easement, but we don't have all the facts either. I doubt it'll get overturned on appeal. Hell, even if the higher court rules an easement is better, they still can't build the fence over the path.

[Dinner]

Get revenge by burning down the neighbors house.